Well, this weekend we had to 'divide and conquer' in the fishing world,
unfortunately, no one advised the stupid fish of that!
Mike had to go to Beaufort to fish the FLW Pro Event on Fish Fever, the team he has fished this entire season on FLW tour with,
and I was going to fish 'Fishing for Miracles' with my good buddy,
the one, the only,
monkey man. He flew from sarasota, fl, wednesday, and we enjoyed a fun day pre-fishing thursday, just mike, mark, and myself,
I mean, the bear, the monkey, and boo boo. After a late night of sushi and saki, we left the dock by 6 am, and had a great day, though a little rough, we hooked a giant beautiful sailfish, my first sail catch ever,
and not an easy one, he was not hooked in the mouth, but the hooks were in his bill,(Duck walks into a bar and says, bartender gimme me a cold beer, just put it on my bill!)
he must have danced across the water 50 times, and was more than squirrely when I finally got him to the boat on the little #4 hooks, which did not seem so little when as Mark Monkey tried to safely release the hooks from the bill and let the beautiful creature return to the safety of the water, one of the trailing hooks came around and buried itself in his thumb, as the sailfish thrashed, the hook buried deeper to the knuckle, and as the monkey thrashed in OW's! he yanked in back out, but THAT's gonna hurt later. We caught some mediocre kings, and then came upon a pod of spanish mackerel on the run in, so we started casting and running planors to catch them to keep as big baits for the tournament. We finally got enough to split between both teams fishing, and as we were fixing to get ready to leave, one of the spanish as also being unhooked, turned and bit Mikey Bear, his razor sharp teeth quickly carved up filet of finger. Don't Poke the Bear, and certainly, don't try and Eat Him! But these animal captains are tougher than most, so they both just gritted their jowls and decided to grin and bear it.
Day One, rough, windy, and windy and rough. Crew of myself and capt monkey, one of my staff rachel P, never been on the boat before, and a regular fly in buddy for many tournaments. We took a beating where ever we went, and finally stayed in one spot after not finding fish at the first few, and two boats hooked up good fish, but we only had one good run, a reel good run, but somehow the fish let go of the bait, all we retrieved was a very large bait, with a very large, BIG bite mark of a kingfish. Mike and his team weighed in a mid 20's, not great but at least a weighable fish, our 11 ish we will be eating later this week! But no one got sick, and desite a few minor probs in the learning curve with the new folks, we had alot of fun, and spent the evening at the tiki bar laughing with other teams till we cried, and then went to bed by 10 pm.
Day Two-much better seas, and thankfully, the monkey and boo boo were already moving slower and cuts, bruises, etc were beginning to arise. New crew day two, of my siser Karen, that's it. We ran to where mike and his team were fishing, as alot of good fish were weighed in from there the first day. Well, no luck, we moved all over, but we just could not catch that break. We had perfect bait, good music, lots of jokes, super foods, and were in the right place, but we just did not have our fish catching mojo working. We had fun though, and got back, washed up the ride, and ate a big meal and had mojito's at the hot tub to ease the now, really aching pains, muscles, and vertibre we re-arranged on day one.
But we did not fail from lack of trying, we did all we could do, but it just was not meant to be.
Taking a week or so off, new boat will be ready soon, if not, still have the Monkey ride as long as we need it. A very nice gesture, to not only let us borrow it, but to come up and help.
More soon!
Peace, love, and fishing!
hey hey boo boo signing out.........
